MIA Formally Announces Suspension of Crime Statistics Reporting

TBILISI – The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) has announced it will no longer publish statistics related to new criminal cases at the end of each month. Instead, the data will henceforth be released only at yearend.

The decision was made by Georgia’s Minister of Internal Affairs, Giorgi Mghebrishvili, who announced as much to reporters on Monday, in order to end speculation over the issue.

“I decided not to publish monthly crime statistics; I am responsible for this decision. The law does not oblige the Ministry to publish such statistics monthly,” he said.

The Minister explained that MIA had been accused of obscuring the true number of criminal cases, adding that these allegations were untrue.

“Some say we are hiding the statistics. We are not hiding anything. There are various methods of counting data and everyone counts it differently. We will publish the statistical data at the end of the year as it is in civilized countries,” stressed Mghebrishvili.

The last time the MIA published crime statistics on its web page was January 2016. However, it was required to publish the data every month.

The MIA has been criticized by multiple NGOs, who have urged the Ministry to keep society fully informed of true, current crime statistics.

Georgia’s Deputy Interior Minister, Shalva Khutsishvili, has responded to criticism by saying the publication of statistics was the responsibility of the National Statistics Service of Georgia (Geostat). He claimed the Ministry has been sending regular monthly data to the agency but that Geostat has not published it.

On December 14, 2016, the NGO Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) published its report about MIA crime statistics and concluded that the highest crime rate in two years fell during the first 9 month of 2016.

According to the IDFI, the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) didn’t actively publish full crime data until 2015. The Ministry did publish monthly detailed statistics during that year, but stopped doing so again in early 2016.

“Currently, crime statistics in Georgia are not being disclosed fully, consistently and proactively. This lack of access to information raises suspicions that the inconsistency with which the MIA has been publishing the data is guided by its content,” the report of IDFI reads.

The IDFI continued by calling on the Interior Ministry to fully, consistently and regularly publish detailed statistics on crime; to explain in detail the methodological changes that resulted in the radical differences found between data published before and after 2013; to fulfil its commitment to create a map of criminal cases; and to provide Geostat with detailed monthly crime statistics monthly. It further called on Geostat to ensure monthly online publication. 

By Thea Morrison